Ten-out-of-ten!

24 December 2010

As far as flat-light days go it doesn’t get any better than that. It snowed 10cm’s in the village overnight but between 30 and 40cm’s at altitude and the snow quality was superb. We had such a good day at the Fornet yesterday and had a good feel for the lay of the land so we all headed up that way again via some great skiing above the ‘L’ and on the Mattis. We started off in the Combe du Signal, which was in a cloud making choosing a line and avoiding haggis traps tricky to say the least, but it was so good it had to be done again. (There is flat-light above the tree line, which is tough enough but nothing compared to being in a cloud/fog where it is so easy to become disorientated or ski into a hole or off a drop-off) Chris and I decided to head higher to the glacier in hope of better visibility and we rose above the fog bank and had two great runs, first off the T-Bar and the second into the Combe du 3300, where we had just enough visibility for comfortable navigation. Meanwhile Olivier and JM arrived and after a run in the Combe du Signal they skied the Grand Vallon, as did Andreas.

It was a stunning morning of great terrain (although you couldn’t see it), wonderful snow, and that sense of adventure and camaraderie that comes when you know there aren’t too many other people in the resort skiing around in such flat-light. Bravo boys!

I had an e-mail from Denise L who is in Canada skiing with my old friends Erich and Barry, who are guides for Mike Wiegele in Blue River. I spent a lot of time with the boys back in my Banff/Lake Louise days and it was great to hear from them. Denise somehow found out about my book, read it and ordered ten copies for her pals, which I sent to Australia. She read about Mike Wiegele in it and has ended up skiing with Erich and Barry. Small world! We look forward to meeting Denise as she promises to come and ski with us next season.

It has snowed all morning and continues as I write at 2:20PM and it looks set to continue.

Jean will be back skiing tomorrow so log-on for some action photos and check out his scenic photos that he took while walking this morning. Thanks Jean!